Small and portable audio devices continue to grow in complexity and are subject to growing expectations concerning the fidelity with which they record (i.e., detect) and play (i.e., acoustically output) sounds. As a result, there is a growing use of digital processing technologies in such audio devices that enable the provision of finer degrees of adjustment to compensate for variances in manufacturing of acoustic components, enable many features to be altered via programming, and enable considerable flexibility in testing.
However, making use of these benefits has been frustrated with the need to be able to couple such audio devices to another device by which such adjustments can be made, such programming can be carried out and/or such testing can be conducted. One well known approach to enabling such coupling is the provision of test points formed on a circuitboard of such an audio device. Unfortunately, the provision of test points requires the loss of valuable space on such circuitboards to position those test points at locations accessible to technicians, and frequently, any use of such test is only possible with such audio devices being at least partially disassembled to gain access to them. Another well known approach to enabling such coupling is the provision of an additional connector. While this may easily enable coupling without disassembly of such an audio device, the connector itself, as well as other accommodations made for its inclusion, often adds both cost and weight to such audio devices.